


Turn Bleak December Once More Into May

by AlysanneBlackwood



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: (Because Francis and James deserve to slow dance damn it), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anachronistic use of Angela Carter, And the music of 'Hair', And thought-provoking conversations, Cats, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, First names as a form of intimacy, Fluff, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Kittens named for the March sisters in 'Little Women' because WHY NOT, M/M, Singing, Slow Dancing, Snake Juice, Snowball Fight, Specifically: singing sad showtunes, Stargazing, Storytelling, There shall be ever so many cats, Tuunbaq is a cat and we love him, Winter Solstice, Winter solstice cat party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:47:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21813163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlysanneBlackwood/pseuds/AlysanneBlackwood
Summary: "Drink with me, my love / For there's fire in the sky / And there's ice on the ground / Either way my soul will die!" -- "The Duel", from "Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812", lyrics by Dave Malloy.Or, Terror After Dusk 2019.Seven short wintertime tales to warm your cold bones and hopefully put a smile on your face.  We all need a little cheer in these dark days, don't we?
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames, Harry D. S. Goodsir/Lady Silence | Silna, John Bridgens/Harry Peglar, Lt George Hodgson & Lt John Irving & Lt Edward Little
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32
Collections: Terror After Dusk 2019





	1. 'Singing with Friends'

**Author's Note:**

> The title of the whole anthology comes from Carlisle Floyd's 1955 opera "Susannah", specifically the second-act aria "The trees on the mountains are cold and bare".
> 
> The songs, in order of which they are mentioned or featured are "Losing My Mind", written by Stephen Sondheim for "Follies", "It Takes Two", written by Stephen Sondheim for "Into the Woods", "The Last Supper", written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice for "Jesus Christ Superstar", "Refresh", written by Dave Malloy for "Octet", "All You Wanna Do", written by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss for "Six" (this is the main song in the story), and "Sonya Alone", written by Dave Malloy for "Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812".

“Can the next song  _ not  _ be incredibly sad? It’s killing the vibe!”

“Killing the vibe? It’s four-thirty, it’s dark out, and it won’t stop snowing. How are sad songs killing the vibe?”

“Hear, hear!” Blanky called, raising his now-empty glass. “I say on with the misery! Who’s next?”

“It’s days like this,” Sophia sighed, leaning back in her chair, “that I wish none of us could sing.”

“What do you mean?” James asked her from the next table. “That wasn’t a very nice song Henry just sang us?”

“Every single song from  _ Follies  _ is kind of sad in hindsight, and ‘Losing My Mind’ is just plain sad. And then there’s your scary shared talent to make people cry when you sing.”

“Excuse me?” Graham leaned forward. “How is it scary?”

“Every single one of you knows just how to play an already sad song to make it extra sad. I’m jealous, and also, I hate it, and also, you could take over the world with that kind of ability. Do any of you ever sing happy songs?”

“Happy songs are too easy,” said Graham. “What’s harder? ‘It Takes Two’ or ‘The Last Supper’?”

“If you’re trying to drag me back into your Sondheim-Lloyd Webber debate, it’s not happening,” Sophia said, but couldn’t help adding, “‘It Takes Two’ is probably more complex, though.”

“I’m sorry, which one of those songs calls for  _ actual anguished screaming?” _

“Just because Lloyd Webber is flashier does  _ not _ mean he’s better.”

“It’s not the spectacle, it’s the feeling. Sondheim buries everything under ten layers of triple rhymes and wordplay.”

“The wordplay enhances the feeling.”

“No, it makes it more confusing. I have no idea why anyone in  _ Follies  _ wants what they want or does what they do.”

“And  _ Cats  _ isn’t confusing?” Sophia asked, arching an eyebrow.

_ “Cats  _ isn’t supposed to have a plot!” Graham replied a little louder than necessary, his face turning slightly red.

“Because it’s incredibly lazily written!”

“Jesus Christ, just agree that Dave Malloy is better than both of them and shut up already,” Edward groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. When they stared at him, he rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me that  _ Great Comet  _ and  _ Octet  _ aren’t modern masterpieces.”

“Speaking of  _ Octet,  _ Ned, if you sing ‘Refresh’ around the flat one more time I’m going to go mad,” John said, leaning down from his perch. “Seriously. One more  _ click swipe click--” _

“It’s  _ click swipe fuck click swipe fuck click swipe fuck click swipe fuck click click,”  _ Edward corrected, and John slid downwards until he was lying prone on top of the counter.

“See?” he moaned.  _ “This. This  _ is what I deal with.”

“I like it,” George called from two tables over. “And so does Satan Lucifer.”

“Satan Lucifer would like it if we sang nonsense syllables at him. He doesn’t have taste.”

“How dare you. Satan Lucifer has wonderful taste.”

“Satan Lucifer is…?” Graham looked from Edward to John and back again.

“Our cat,” Edward said. “Blame John for the name.”

“Blame Tuunbaq,” John insisted. “He’s the one giving cats a bad reputation.”

“Who’s next?” Sophia asked, by way of cutting off what was going to become a pointless conversation. She looked to the small area used mostly on open-mic nights, which was now being used for what was supposed to have been amusement, but had turned into winter-and-sad-song-induced melancholy. Then she saw who was getting ready. “Oh, no. No.  _ No.” _

“What’s wrong?” Silna asked, looking over and seeing her terrified expression. Sophia got up and took her by the shoulders.

“We are about to witness a weapon of mass destruction. If you don’t want to be an emotional wreck in eight minutes, leave now. Save yourself.”

“How much have you had to drink?” Silna asked, her expression shifting into concerned-doctor-mode. Sophia shook her head insistently.

“You don’t understand. I’ve seen this. It will ruin you. John,” she called, “back me up?”

“He’s under the table,” Henry said, gesturing to where John Hartnell had curled in on himself. “He saw Thomas and Tom up there and just dove.”

“You’re lucky,” John cried to Sophia from his place on the floor. “You only saw it once. I’ve seen it three times, and each time is worse than the last!”

“I don’t get it,” Graham said. “Is this going to be really bad?” 

“No,” John said, his voice muffled. “It’s  _ good.  _ That’s the worst part. It’s really, really  _ good.” _

“I’m locking the door,” Blanky said, stepping out from behind the counter. “There’s cold air coming in.”

“We need an escape route!” John yelled, but it was too late. The door was locked. There was no going back. John lifted his head from his arms and glanced at Sophia. Well. No time like the present to have your heart punched repeatedly, broken, ripped out, and stomped to ashes.

But then a wickedly smiling Blanky started the music. And almost everyone understood immediately what John and Sophia had been going on about.

It really wasn’t fair, that they were allowed to sing that song. There should be a rule against it: ‘People who are very good at playing roles that make you cry shouldn’t be allowed to sing “All You Wanna Do.”’ That, however, was the point. You had to be a good tragic actor to sing it. It simply wouldn’t work if you weren’t. Oh, it really  _ was  _ such an awful paradox!

If Thomas and Tom noticed the dread that was mixed with the appreciation (for they truly  _ were  _ as good as John had warned) for their performance, they didn’t show it. At first it really wasn’t so bad, if not for the song’s absolutely stomach-knotting story. Sophia even found herself nodding along to the beat a few times, and John (Irving, not Hartnell, who was still hiding under the table) tapped his fingers on time on the counter.

The verse about Mannox went by. Then the one about Dereham. The wedding passed as well. And, finally, the dreaded kicker. Sophia just knew she was going to need eye drops after this.

_ “And there’s nothing more to it; he just cares so much, he’s devoted. He says we have a connection…”  _ Thomas’s voice trailed off, his hopeful expression changing to one of slowly dawning horror. He swallowed hard.  _ “I thought this time was different, why did I think he’d be different, but it’s never, EVER, different!” _

_ “‘Cause all you wanna do, all you wanna do, baby’s, touch me; when will enough BE ENOUGH, see?”  _ By the end of the line, Tom’s voice had risen to a trembling shriek, furious and miserable and exhausted. It was the cry of one who has had everything horrible and traumatising come crashing down upon them at once. 

Thomas sounded near tears as he sang the next part of the final chorus.  _ “All you wanna do, all you wanna do, baby’s, squeeze me, don’t care if you don’t please me.”  _ The next words tore into the air in a howl.  _ “Bite my lip and pull my hair as you tell me I’m the fairest of the fair!” _

_ “Playtime’s over.”  _ Now they joined together, their voices suddenly ominous, dark, the tone of a judge proclaiming a death sentence (which was quite fitting).  _ “Playtime’s over. Playtime’s over…! The only thing -- the only thing -- the only thing you wanna do is--”  _ Dead silence filled the room, save for the sound of their sobs: heartbroken, pitiful, and so horribly childlike and vulnerable that there wasn’t a person in the room who didn’t want to run to them and give each of them a hug. 

Francis and James were gaping at both of them with the expressions of parents who have just seen their children fall headfirst down the stairs and crack their skulls open. Under the table, John had curled into himself even further to cry. Edward and George had buried their faces in their hands. Silna was visibly blinking back tears. Sophia looked around. Even through her own tears she could see that everyone else was completely dumbfounded. Well, if no one else could do it… 

_ “That,”  _ she said to Thomas and Tom, who had left the ‘stage’, “is too powerful! It’s practically Dickensian! If you sang it in a graveyard you’d raise the dead, and the dead would cry!”

“It’s that kind of song,” Tom pointed out blithely. “It’s supposed to be sad.”

“Yes, but…” Sophia tried to find an explanation, but honestly, she couldn’t fault them. It really  _ was  _ supposed to be that sad. “Um. That was actually amazing. Now can someone  _ please  _ sing a happy song next? I don’t care how stupid it is!”

“I’ve got one,” George said, finally raising his head from his hands. “Who wants to hear it?” Everyone, now desperate for any kind of musical cheering-up, raised their hands. He got up and dragged the keyboard out from where it had been shoved into the corner to make room for a second microphone. Sitting down again, he began.  _ “Hard as it is in the coming days, I watch my friend in her strange unnatural state; don’t let her out of my sight. She trails off, stares at nothing, laughs at random -- and the letters come.” _

Sophia slid her eyes in Silna’s direction. One shared look told her she was thinking the exact same thing:  _ We need friends who aren’t fantastic tragedians. _


	2. 'If On a Winter's Night'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a bit of Goodsir/Silna fluff, because good gods, do they deserve some. (Featuring Tuunbaq the Most Wonderful Cat, of course.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a bit weak, in my opinion -- somewhat plotless fluff is one of my blind spots when it comes to writing, and this is my first time writing for this ship. Still, I don't think it's as bad as it could have been.

Neither of them has ever liked the night sky in the city. It’s not the sky you see up there, they agree, it’s a cover of streetlights and buildings. The real sky doesn’t start until you get out of the suburbs.

She looks out the window, watching the world go by in a never-ending, blue-black stream. Tuunbaq sits curled up and purring happily in her lap. They couldn’t leave him at home; he would have found some way to get out of the flat and terrorize Francis and James as he’s done at least three times before. Maybe four. (James insists that he came into their flat one night and moved stuff around, but Silna doubts that even Tuunbaq could do that. Still, there  _ is _ something awfully supernatural about that cat, and neither Silna nor Harry can help that the only person he’ll truly listen to is her dad.) The moon is clearer out here, and a few stars are slowly beginning to show themselves, as if peeking shyly from around a door.

Another five minutes pass in companionable silence, and Harry pulls off the road. “Here,” he says, and Tuunbaq wakes up and starts pawing at the window, trying to get out. The second Silna opens the door he leaps down to the ground, blending in with the snow as he bounds away. She doesn’t worry that he’ll get lost; he seems to know his way around everywhere, so much so that her father jokes that he must have been something else before he was a cat -- maybe a bear, or a wolf. 

The hood of the car is freezing but they sit up there anyway, nestling into each other for warmth. By now there are stars as far as the eye could see, tiny pinpricks in the sky’s endless black curve. Silna tips her head back to see more of them. “Looks like a cat’s face,” she says, pointing out a cluster that form a shape with two points on the top. Harry narrows his eyes, peering up where her finger points.

“It’s straight on the left. Maybe a cat with a squashed face?” Silna squints. The cluster curves outward and then back in on the right, but on the left the stars form a straight line. 

“Or a cat with only half a face.”

“There’s a vase,” Harry says, gesturing to another cluster, this one taller and thinner than the first. Silna doesn’t have time to look at it before she hears a mew, and then a telltale, familiar thud. She looks down. Tuunbaq has evidently taken the camouflage given to him by the snow as an opportunity to sneak-attack Harry, who’s lying on the ground with Tuunbaq standing on his chest, meowing incessantly for scratches behind the ears. Harry obliges, laughing. “You could’ve just  _ asked,”  _ he tells the cat, who is too pleased with himself to listen. “Why doesn’t he ever do this to you?” he asks Silna. “I’ve seen him jump on everyone else, but never you.”

“I don’t know,” Silna admits. “I think I’m the only one of us he respects.” And thank god he does, she thinks, otherwise we’d have a demon on their hands.

“You should come down here,” Harry says after a moment. “The stars are brighter. You, get off me,” he adds sternly to Tuunbaq. “You’re blocking the view.” Tuunbaq gives him a look that can only be described as a cat’s version of side-eye and stays right where he is. Silna hesitates before sliding off the hood and lying down next to Harry, lifting Tuunbaq off of him and placing him between them so he can stay warm. 

She almost has to shield her eyes. The stars aren’t merely twinkling -- from this perspective they seem to glow, great silver bursts of light which hang delicately against the sky, as if held there by invisible threads. She inhales deeply. The air is freezing cold and knife-sharp, but cleaner than it is in the city. The taste of winter, if winter can have a taste.

Silna figures they should probably get going soon, if they don’t want to come down with something this close to the holidays. But when the stars are winking this close, and Harry’s hand is reaching for hers, and Tuunbaq is purring again, she can stay out here a while longer.


	3. 'Cold Snap'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bit of Bridgens/Peglar fluff with a fantastical element, because (as with many Terror ships), Lord knows they deserve it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first passage in italics is taken from the titular short story in Angela Carter's 1979 anthology "The Bloody Chamber", as is the later line about the Erl-King.

When he was a child, he had fancied the woods far more alive than he was told they were. Oh, there were the birds and squirrels and chipmunks and insects, but those were not what he sought out. In the spring and summer, he would spend hours peering into the newly blossomed flowers and each knot and hole in every tree-trunk, hoping for a glimpse into the miniscule world of Faerie. He stayed up long into the night and watched his window closely for Queen Mab’s arrival, but he always fell asleep, and was frustrated in the morning because he  _ must  _ have missed her coming. How else could he have dreamed at all?

When he was older, he knew he never saw Queen Mab because she was a tale from the mind of Shakespeare and nothing else, as were the other creatures he had so longed to see. It certainly made for good literature, though, he reflected wryly, and it kept him in business. There was always someone inquiring after a book by Tolkien, or Cooper; Perrault or the Grimms, if they were of an old-fashioned bent; Carter, if they wished for something more subversive. It was the latter that Harry loved most of all, and never tired of reading. He had found his mother’s copy of  _ The Bloody Chamber  _ when he was thirteen, one winter afternoon when he’d been home alone and had nothing better to do than look through the basement bookshelf for something to read. They’d put all the books they read in university there; books he wasn’t supposed to read, but rules be damned, he was bored.  _ The Bloody Chamber  _ had intrigued him most of all -- what was it? A horror novel? Something to do with vampires? He’d sat down on the sofa and opened the book to the words he now knew so well:

_ I remember how, that night, I lay awake in the wagon-lit in a tender, delicious ecstasy of excitement, my burning cheek pressed against the impeccable linen of the pillow and the pounding of my heart mimicking that of the great pistons ceaselessly thrusting the train that bore me through the night, away from Paris, away from girlhood, away from the white, enclosed quietude of my mother’s apartment into the unguessable country of marriage. _

It was, Harry had thought at the time, too long a sentence to begin with, but even so he pressed on, fascinated by this unnamed girl who, it turned out, had married a strange and older Marquis. And when he’d reached the end, he found to his delight that there were more stories after it, and he’d spent the rest of the afternoon with Mr Lyon and the tiger who wore a man’s mask and the lonesome queen of the vampires and the fearless young girl who slept sound in the wolf’s arms. 

He had played a game for days afterwards (and after carefully replacing the book exactly where it had been so his mum and dad didn’t find out), asking himself what he would have done in the position of each protagonist. Would he have wed the Marquis? That he honestly could not answer, not even now. And Milord the tiger, would he take off his clothes for him, as the girl did at the end of the story? Once again, he had no answer then, and did not now. There was something very thought-provoking in pondering each question, and on slow business days he would imagine out a scenario and consider each path he could take, until one of the kittens bothered him for a pet.

As much as he loved those stories, he was grateful he still did not expect to find elves and gnomes around every corner. To read about a werewolf who ordered you to strip was one thing, but to encounter one or live in fear of encountering one would be quite another.

Of course, it is always when we stop believing in things that we are most wont to find them.

So it was that Harry had been traipsing through the woods last winter, taking longer to return home than usual because the moon was full and turning the furrows in the snow silver, that he’d heard a soft voice behind him. “Are you lost?”

A chill, not brought on by the cold, ran up his spine, and he remembered a line:  _ Erl-King will do you grievous harm. _

But the eyes that seemed to melt out of the trees were the kindest and yet the most mournful he had ever seen, so much so that his heart nearly stopped at the sight of them. The man before him was like none other he’d ever seen -- clad simply in a great white cloak that obscured his figure entirely, his grey hair hanging loose about his shoulders. Harry hadn’t been able to answer the question, for there had only been one thought in his head as he stared into those sad eyes.  _ I want to make him laugh again. _

“No,” he had said at last. “But you look lonely. Will you walk with me?”

And all that winter, he had returned to the woods, at first only to speak with the Erl-King  _ (what  _ John was he would never say exactly, because he himself did not know, but Harry thought this label the most appropriate), and then, as the winter snows melted and the first flowers shyly poked their buds above ground, to lie with him, and love him.

In summer the neighbour’s cat had borne four kittens, tabby sisters he could not care for, and Harry had taken them and brought them to John for introduction. Meg, Jo, and Amy had taken to him immediately; Beth, true to her namesake, had been shy, but after a while she loved John best of all, and in August she began to stay with him perpetually.

Tonight it is nearly a year to their first meeting, and it’s been so cold all day that, even with the heater turned all up and clanging away, Harry still had to keep his coat on. It’s a slow business day; he spends most of it at the counter, reading  _ Frankenstein  _ for the fourth time. When the clock strikes nine he turns the sign around, pulls on his scarf and hat, makes sure that Meg, Jo, and Amy are comfortable in his coat, and heads for the woods.

By the time he gets to the edge of the wood, it must be twelve below, and Harry wishes he’d brought another scarf before continuing. John said he would meet him at the center of the wood, at the frozen tree. What the “frozen tree” could be Harry can’t quite picture, but he figures that he will know it when he sees it, and so on he goes.

At the center of the wood he finds an enormous oak tree, and for a moment he almost forgets John entirely as he tries to take in the sight. The entire tree is covered in an icy sheen, seemingly gossamer-fine but in reality thick enough for the moon to reflect through it, giving the tree an otherworldly silver glow. One lone leaf still stubbornly clings to its branch, turned from yellow to gold by the ice and the moonlight. Harry sucks in a long breath, and immediately regrets it. The air is cold enough to stab his lungs, and he wheezes.

Something whines below him, and he looks down to see a familiar grey tabby coat. “Beth. What are you doing out here alone?”

“She couldn’t wait to see you,” a voice says above him, and there is John, sitting in the tree’s lowest branch easily as if it were the middle of spring. “Come on up. I’ll keep you steady.” He holds out his hand, and when Harry takes it his feet do not slip against the ice, but seem to take hold in grooves invisible to the eye and he is sitting besides John in no time at all, Beth following him and settling herself between them. Despite the temperature being well below freezing, John is at ease, even serene, though he notices Harry’s teeth chattering and pulls him into his cloak for warmth. “It’s a shame about the clouds,” he says, pointing to the north with a bare finger. “They’ll cover the moon up.” Harry looks where he points; a bank of clouds are slowly rolling in towards the trees. More snow, he thinks.  _ Great.  _

Inside the cloak, pressed against John’s side, it’s almost hot, and the kittens poke their heads into the darkness and climb out of it to join their sister on the branch. Harry sighs, leaning his head against John’s shoulder, and John looks down at him concernedly. “Is something bothering you?”

“No. I’m just glad to be here with you.” John smiles, and they watch the moon running its slow course. Words are what Harry’s always sworn by; they were his closest friends when he was younger, he makes his living by them. Yet he has never needed so many words with John. In their shared silence is a surety of feeling, a quiet, deep understanding of each other. And it is the warmest comfort Harry can think of.


	4. 'On a Glacier Far, Far Away'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which four stories are told, and the fairy-tale becomes a coping mechanism.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. This is set within episode seven , right after Morfin's death. I've always wondered how everyone coped with it, as so much goes unsaid. Surely it was traumatizing.  
> 2\. The stories told, in order, are: "La belle et la bête", based on the version written down by Jeanne Marie Leprince de Beaumont; "The Tiger's Bride", written by Angela Carter in her anthology "The Bloody Chamber"; "Rapunzel", based on the version written by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm; and "The Company of Wolves", written by Angela Carter in the same anthology. The second and fourth are quite anachronistic, but please allow me this small liberty. This show has a spirit bear in it, for heaven's sake.

The silence hangs heavy over them in thick, invisible clouds, and they cannot sleep. There must not be a man in camp who  _ can _ sleep, Tom thinks, what with the cold and the earlier… He cannot find a word for it. “Incident” is not enough. “Suicide” is not right either; Morfin begged for death, it is true, but he did not end himself. Is it “mercy”, then? Next to him Chambers rolls over for what must be the tenth time in the past few minutes, and speaks, his voice barely a whisper against the quiet’s press.

“D’you think he’s gone to Hell?”

“What?” Best grumbles from the far left side of the tent. 

“Mr Morfin. Has he gone to Hell?”

“Do you think I know?”

“I’m not asking what you know. I’m asking what you think.”

“I’m thinking that I want to sleep without you or anyone else here bothering me.”

“But you can’t sleep,” Wentzall says. “You’ve been watching the wall for what must be half an hour.”

More silence. Then, in a trembling voice: “My God, I can  _ smell  _ him.” Best is sitting up, his arms wrapped around his knees. “Do you smell that? That stench? That’s  _ him.  _ That’s John.”

_ John.  _ Forenames are so rare here and now. Tom sits up. “Did you know him well, Mr Best?”

“Charlie,” Best mutters angrily, swiping at his right eye. “Call me Charlie. We’re -- I -- we spoke sometimes, perhaps more than we would have usually -- he was begging. I was close enough to hear. He was begging to die. What must have been going through his mind -- good Christ, how many more of us will go like that?”

“He…” Tom searches for some words of comfort, or at least some reassurance. “He was ill…”

“And we won’t be?” Wentzall has joined them against the tent’s wall. “It must be impossible not to fall ill out here. This cold alone would do it, if that thing doesn’t eat us first.”

“We haven’t seen it in a while,” Chambers says, straggling out of his sack. “Maybe it’s gone off and died.”

Tom wants to nod, wants to agree, but all he can think is of how it ripped through Lieutenant Gore as if his flesh was no more than paper. Something that strong can’t be killed only by a shot and a fire. He doesn’t say anything, and once more the silence bears down. This time Wentzall breaks it.

“Why’d you tell Mr Hartnell to call you Charlie?” he asks Best.

“We’re at the end of formality now,” Charlie says quietly. “I don’t see the use in maintaining it when we’ll all be in the same place at the end.”  _ Dead,  _ Tom thinks, even as he tries to reassure himself that Charlie means the trading post.

“If you want me to call you Charlie, you’ve got to call me Will,” Wentzall says, placing a hand on Charlie’s shoulder and shaking him lightly in an effort to cheer him up. Charlie gives him a weak, grateful smile. “You?” he asks Tom. “What do you like to be called?”

Saying his first name aloud brings with it a rush of relief he did not expect. No one’s called him Tom since… God, when? Since John. And when Chambers comes over and reintroduces himself almost shyly, Charlie’s eyes seem a little brighter.

“If we can’t sleep,” Will says once introductions are done with, “what do we do?”

“Stories,” Tom says, remembering the nights when he and John and Mary Ann would stare at the ceiling until one of them turned on their side towards the others and began to either recount something they already knew or make something up. “That might take our minds off…” He trails off for what feels like the hundredth time that night. There is still not a word for it.

“I know one,” George says. “My mam told it when I was little.” He hesitates, and when they stay silent, he begins. “There once was a man who had three daughters. The elder two were selfish and spent their time chasing after dukes and earls, but the youngest preferred the company of her father and her books. The father lost his fortune, and while the older girls refused to work, the youngest kept the house clean and spun wool into thread to sell at the market. When they had been poor a year the father got word that one of his ships had come in, and some of their fortunes were restored. He made to leave and claim his money and goods at once, and before he left he asked each of his daughters what they would have from him.

“ ‘Bring me a silk gown,’ said the oldest, ‘that has been dyed in the richest gold.’

“ ‘Bring me a chain of diamonds,’ said the middle daughter, ‘that will wink like the stars around my neck.’

“ ‘What will you have, Beauty?’ the father asked the youngest, for she was so lovely that everyone had fallen into the habit of calling her Beauty long ago. Beauty pondered a while before answering.

“ ‘I would have a rose, father,’ she said. ‘There are none here.’ And their father promised he would come back with their gifts and dozens more, kissed each of them, and went off. When he came to port he found that his ship had been robbed in the night, and so he made to return poor as before. He was not far from his house when he became hopelessly lost in a great wood, and was saved from wolves only when he found an enormous castle to take refuge in. When he walked in he found that a table had been laid with a great feast, and though he was hungry he decided not to partake and simply warm himself by the fire for a moment. But no one appeared, and after a time his hunger grew too great and he ate half the meal before falling asleep in his chair. In the morning he found his horse as well-cared for as he, and presumed that it was a good fairy who kept the place. He was on his way to leave when he spotted a rose-bush and remembered his promises; well, he thought, one out of three is not bad. He had only just plucked the largest one when there was a great roar and an enormous Beast thundered into his sight.

“ ‘My roses are what is most precious to me in God’s world,’ he snarled, ‘and you, who I have cared for in your time of need, would dare to steal one from me!’

“ ‘Please, my lord,’ cried the father, who was trembling terribly. ‘I am but a poor merchant. My youngest daughter asked a rose of me and I could not help but to bring her one.’

“ ‘Do not call me “my lord”,’ grumbled the Beast. ‘I don’t care for flattery. But I will forgive you, if one of your daughters comes to me willingly and stays with me in your stead. If they all refuse, you will return to me within the month.’

“The father did not want to send any of his daughters to a painful death, but he also wanted to rid himself of the sight of the Beast at once. ‘Of course,’ he cried, ‘but let me take the rose.’

“ ‘Take it!’ said the Beast, and vanished. The father went on home and told his daughters the whole story, whereupon the elder two suggested that they call up the town men to kill the Beast, but Beauty would have none of it.

“ ‘A deal is a deal,’ she said, ‘and so I will go to this Beast. No, father,’ she added when he began to protest, ‘you are too old to weather such a creature. Let me.’ And, refusing to hear another word on the matter, she left.

“In the castle she found a splendid room set aside for her, stocked with many books, and she read a while before going to find something to eat. Like her father before her she found a table set with a feast, and it was when she sat down to eat that the Beast appeared to her. She was horribly frightened but steeled herself and looked him straight in the eye. ‘What is it you want?’ she asked him.

“ ‘I would only watch you eat your supper,’ he said sadly, ‘and tell you that everything here is yours to do as you please with. Will you allow me?’ She gave him her leave, and he sat across from her and watched her eat while taking no food for himself. She thought his eyes, in spite of his monstrous appearance, very pitiful. When she had finished he asked her, ‘Will you be my wife?’

“ ‘No!’ she answered at once, and regretted it, for he looked sadder than ever. ‘I am sorry,’ she added, trying to be kinder, ‘but no.’ And he sighed a sigh that rattled the windows with its heaviness, and left her alone. She stayed there for three more months, during which she discovered that he was a kind creature, and could keep a good conversation, and she did come to love him as a friend. Still, she could not bring herself to say yes to his proposals, for no matter what he was still a dreadful-looking Beast. One night she told him that she wished to visit her father, and he hesitated.

“ ‘If you leave me forever,’ he said, ‘I shall die of grief.’

“ ‘I do not mean to leave forever,’ Beauty said. ‘I ask of you only a week.’ He agreed, and she left the castle for the town, where she found her father a wealthy man once more, for the Beast had been kind enough to restore his fortunes. She was overcome with joy to see him again, and, when he begged her to stay at the end of the week, she agreed to another, and then another. At the end of the third week she could not help but think of the Beast, and how miserable he must be, and found that she missed him very much. She hastened back, and found him abed, his once-shining fur dulled and his once-roaring voice a whisper.

“ ‘You were gone for longer than I expected,’ he croaked, ‘and I thought I could not live without you, and so I have been starving myself. But with you here once more, I may die a happy Beast.’

“ ‘No,’ cried Beauty, beginning to weep, ‘you must live, and marry me. I thought I loved you only as a friend, but my grief is too great for friendship -- I do love you as a wife would after all!’ And she flung her arms around him, and in her embrace the Beast began to shrink, and when she lifted her head she found a beautiful Prince in her arms. ‘Where is my Beast?’ she demanded.

“ ‘I am he,’ the Prince explained. ‘A cruel fairy cursed me for my arrogance, that I would remain a Beast until a beautiful human girl consented to marry me. Only you had the goodness of heart and mind to see me as I truly was despite my monstrosity. Will you still be my wife, though I am changed thus?’ Beauty kissed him and said she would, and they were wed and had many children and lived many happy years together.” George finally stops and inhales deeply, for he has told the whole story very quickly with almost no time to stop for breath. Will blinks at him in disbelief.

“How did you remember that much detail?”

“My brothers loved it. I must have heard it over a hundred times.”

The story -- an old tale that Tom knows well, has stirred another memory. “John once told me something similar,” he says. “It’s not entirely the same, though. D’you want to hear it?” The others nod, and he begins. “A Russian gentleman once fled his homeland for Italy, where he gambled his whole fortune away to the lord of the city. The last thing he gambled away was his daughter, and she had to go and live with the lord in his castle. When she arrived, his valet informed her of the lord’s one request: that he would see her naked. Afterward she could return home with her father’s fortune and more riches besides. But she was proud, and refused, and so she was given a room, and a maid who moved by clockwork. The lord gave her a pair of diamond earrings, but she still refused, and so his valet came to her the next morning and told her they were to go hunting. When they went out the lord removed his clothing, and she saw for the first time that he was no man but a great and fierce tiger. She was moved by his honesty, and removed her coat to show him her skin, but he did not want to see more and went off to hunt. They returned to the tiger’s house and she found her father there, rich once more, but he paid her no mind and she realised he did not care for her at all. So she went to the tiger’s room, where she stripped off all her clothes for him. She was mightily afraid he’d eat her, but he licked her instead, licked her and licked her until her skin fell away and out from the remains stepped a tiger fit to be the queen of all beasts.” That is how John always described her, and when Tom asked what a tiger fit to be the queen looked like, he would shrug and say  _ he  _ hadn’t made up the story.

“That’s the first one but switched,” Charlie says. “I only ever knew the first. Where’d your brother hear that one?” Tom shrugs.

“Our --  _ my  _ father’s a shipwright,” he says, the correction bringing with it a painful twinge of grief. “We used to hang around the docks. Maybe he heard it from one of the men there. They got all sorts of stories from the places they sailed.”

“I’ve got one,” Will says. “I forget where I heard it, but I liked to scare my sister with it.”

“Is it frightening?” George asks, and Will snorts with laughter; a sudden sound, that, in spite of its derisive nature, has a faint ring of merriness to it, and Tom bites his lip, afraid that if he joins in as he so wants to, he will sound like a creaking, mad old thing. 

“Only if you’re seven, and afraid of a witch--” He stops, and looks down at his hands. They are all thinking the same thing:  _ what else, if there are things like that creature on this earth?  _ But Will clears his throat and goes on. “A long time ago there was a farmer and his wife who wanted nothing more than a baby, and after many tries they were rewarded. The wife soon found that she only wanted to eat the rampion which grew in the neighbour’s garden, and when she began to waste away for the want of it, the farmer climbed the wall between the houses and brought her some. But it was not enough, and he had to bring her still more the next night for her supper. On the third night the neighbour found him tearing up the rampion, and was furious. She was a witch and threatened to turn him into a stone or a dog or a chair, but when he explained that his wife would die without the rampion, she allowed him to take as much as he wanted. ‘Fair must be fair,’ she said, ‘and in return for my rampion, you will give me the baby your wife bears.’ The poor farmer was so desperate and loved his wife so much that he agreed, and when the baby was born the witch came to their door, named the girl Rapunzel, and took her away. She took her deep into the forest and used her magic to build the tallest tower known to man, and locked her in there. For many years, Rapunzel knew only the witch’s company, but one day a Prince was hunting and heard her singing a lonely song. He wanted to run to her immediately but hid when he saw the witch coming. He saw how the witch called for Rapunzel to let her hair down and climbed up the tower by using it as a rope, and the next day, when she was gone, he did the same. Rapunzel was scared of him at first but he poured out his heart to her, and they were both in love at once. He said he would take her away but had yet to figure out how, but he still visited nearly every day. Half a year after their first meeting, Rapunzel greeted the witch with a strange question.

“ ‘Grandmother,’ she asked, ‘how is that my clothes are so much tighter around the middle?’ The witch knew what was meant at once, and cut off Rapunzel’s hair in a rage and sent her away into a desolate place where she suffered greatly. The prince came visiting soon after, and the witch let him up by throwing down the cut hair to him. When he climbed through the window she threw him down into a thornbush, and he pricked his eyes on the thorns and lost his sight. In his grief he wandered, until he came to the place where Rapunzel lived with their two children. Rapunzel recognised him and threw herself upon him, crying, and her tears restored his sight, and so they left that desolate place and ruled happily for many years.”

“What happened to the witch?” asks Charlie. 

“I don’t know. No one ever said,” Will says with a shrug. “Have you got one?” Charlie nods. “Then go on. Tell it.”

Charlie begins. “A mother sent her daughter into the forest to bring her grandmother some bread and wine while she recovered from an illness. Along the way she met a young man who showed her his compass, and bet her that he could get to her grandmother’s house before she did, since he would have the compass whilst she had only the path. She asked what he would have of her should he arrive first, and shook on the promise of a kiss. He got there first and stripped his clothes off before the shocked grandmother, eating her up before she had the time to react. The girl came after and found him sitting in her grandmother’s bed, completely naked. She was not afraid, for she felt that fear did her no good at all. She laughed at him when he told her to take off her clothes, threw her cloak and skirt and shoes into the fire, and climbed into bed with him. All night long she slept between his paws, and he did not hurt her at all.”

Monsters who hold you. Endings in safety and stability and love. They can feel it between them: the longing to simply step inside one of these stories. A world with proper right and wrong. A world where danger never lasts. It’s getting harder and harder to remember that world, the worlds they left behind, as if they only ever existed once upon a time.


	5. 'Dashing Through the Snow'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A snowball fight and some fascinating conversations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lyrics included in this are from (respectively) "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" by Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and "Rock Island", from "The Music Man", for which Meredith Willson wrote the lyrics.

There were three things anyone living with George Hodgson should know:

1\. He didn’t like silence, and would talk about anything and nothing to fill it,

2\. He really was quite a good piano player and would happily take requests, but that didn’t excuse his purposefully atrocious rendition of “Helter Skelter”, which would drive the calmest and sanest of people up the wall (and John and Edward were decidedly _not_ the calmest and sanest of people),

And:

3\. He had absolutely deadly aim with a snowball, and woe betide anyone who wasn’t constantly on watch the very millisecond it started snowing. Except Satan Lucifer. Satan Lucifer was exempt from this by virtue of being the Greatest Cat in All London and Perhaps Even The Isle of Britain.

So that was why, when John went outside that Saturday morning for milk (they were out, blame Edward’s habit of drinking straight from the carton), he took the cat with him as his living shield. Pets weren’t allowed in the grocery, but he was halfway confident that, if he hummed “Dead Mom” the entire time inside, Satan Lucifer wouldn’t mind hiding in his coat (blame the _Beetlejuice_ cast recording for its perfection and infinite playability). 

He was halfway to the gate when a cold wetness exploded across the back of his head, and he whirled around. “Do you mind? We agreed that Satan Lucifer is excepted from your terrifying snowball fight obsession!”

“I didn’t see him there,” George said, coming into sight from around the side of the building. The sly, frankly evil grin on his face and his snow-covered right glove said otherwise. John glared at him.

“Go inside and throw one at Ned if you want. He still isn’t up. He didn’t even open an eye when I finally got the cat out of his stupid tight grip.”

“John, not all of us like to be up at six in the morning,” explained George in the most infuriating, obnoxious, faux-patient tone imaginable.

“It’s nine-forty-five!”

“By the time I get inside, any snowball I have will be melted. What am I supposed to do, pour cold water on his face?”

In spite of the melted snow that was now running down his back, John snorted. “Can you imagine it?”

“He might actually murder me. Like, chase me with a fire poker.”

“We don’t have a fire poker.”

“We do. I found it in the closet. Unless it’s a dildo shaped like a fire poker.”

John almost choked on the air itself. _“What?”_

“Nevermind. Where are you going?”

“The store. We’re out of milk again.”

“Then give me the cat.”

“No.” John clutched a now-protesting Satan Lucifer to his chest. “I need him in case I think too much about a dildo shaped like a fire poker and spontaneously shut down.” Satan Lucifer, for his extremely unhelpful part, began whining and reaching for George. John glared at him. “Traitor.”

“He’s not a traitor, he’s just cold. Come on.” George successfully pulled the cat out of John’s arms. “You just wanna get warm, don’t you? Let’s go see if we can wake Ned up.” And he went inside the back door, singing to the happily purring Satan Lucifer as they went. _“Baby, you’ll come knocking on my front door; same old line you used to use before. I said yeah, well, what am I supposed to do? I didn’t know what I was getting into.”_ Oh, _great._ Now that was going to be stuck in John’s head for the next month. It was Edward who’d insisted they raise Satan Lucifer with the finest musical education one could give a cat, and that meant introducing him to the greatest artists of all time. “The greatest artists of all time” being a synonym for “our favourites” in this case, the cat had developed a particular appreciation for the Beatles, Florence and the Machine, Stevie Nicks, _Hair,_ and _Beetlejuice._ He was now a cat of excellent taste, to be sure, but John wasn’t entirely sure that the cost (the sacrifice of his brain to a constant barrage of repeating songs) was worth it. He was going to have to introduce Satan Lucifer to something new. Janis Joplin might not be so bad. Or _Godspell. Godspell_ was probably the better idea. Janis Joplin was too close to _Hair._

By the time he got back to the flat, he found George and Satan Lucifer in the bedroom. Edward still wasn’t up.

“If you don’t get up, I will sing _Company_ until your ears bleed.”

“Impossible. I love _Company.”_

“Okay, then I’ll play and sing all of _The Music Man.”_

“I like that one too.”

“And I will sing the whole thing in my Harold Hill impression, regardless of character.”

“George. _No.”_

 _“Cash for the merchandise, cash for the buttonhooks--”_ John cringed. George’s “Harold Hill impression” (such as it was) sounded nothing like Robert Preston, or any other actor who had ever played the part. It consisted of a strangled-sounding, extremely thick New York accent coupled with a drawl on every single word that George insisted gave it an authoritative charm. Edward and John telling him numerous times it sounded like Joe Pesci being tortured never stopped him. Actually, it just made him quote whatever Scorsese movie he could think of.

“Jesus Christ, I’m up! Don’t torture me!” Edward was already getting dressed. “What is it you want to do so badly that you had to get me up way too early?”

“Ned. It’s past ten.”

“It’s Saturday. Any time before noon is too early.” Satan Lucifer mewed his agreement and padded across the bed and jumped into Edward’s arms. “Yeah. You’re not a morning person either, hm?” He turned back to George. “Whatever you have in mind, it better not involve fire.”

“I don’t set things on fire, Harry and Alex’s grumpy boss does.”

“Stanley set something on fire?” John asked.

“No, but Alex thinks he might. He’s always got matches in his pocket, and Harry says he sometimes gets a look on his face like, ‘I will set you on fire if you don’t do exactly what I say.’ But why would we need fire? Everything we need’s right out there.” George pointed to the window, and Edward looked out to see the snow.

“You know how I feel about sledding.”

“There’s no hill to sled on, and I have something better in mind.”

“It’s a trap,” John said. “He’s going to put ice in the snowballs and knock us out to win.”

“How dare you. You know that the first cardinal rule of snowball fights is that you don’t put anything except snow in snowballs; otherwise, it’s cheating. The second is every person for themself. Team-ups are unfair and tip the scale too far in one direction. The third is you never say ‘I’ll be right back.’”

“The last one’s a horror movie rule,” Edward said, pulling on his coat. George shrugged.

“It applies here too. If you say it and try to go back inside, you’ll get hit.”

“So we’re doing this?” John called as George and Edward, now fully bundled up, headed for the door. “We’re doing this. Come on,” he sighed to Satan Lucifer. “Cats don’t count as team-ups.”

Outside, George was already ruthlessly pelting an endlessly ducking, yelping Edward with snowballs. _“You’re not even giving me a chance!”_

“If you’d let yourself get hit a couple times you’d have one!” George retorted, effortlessly throwing another snowball and hitting John in the shoulder. “Come on! You’re both making it too easy!”

“The point is not to get hit!” John yelled, letting Satan Lucifer down.

 _“WRONG!”_ George had a slightly mad gleam in his eye. “The point is to throw and get hit until you’re down!” John tried to send Edward an _our boyfriend has lost his mind_ message with his eyes, but then another snowball hit him square in the face. Alright. That was it. Screw the rules. He grabbed Edward.

“We’re stopping him together.”

“But the second rule--”

“He’s mad with power and better at this than both of us.” He tugged Edward along to a medium-sized snowdrift and crouched behind. “We can get him from here. It’s not like he can see us.”

“Right.” Edward already had a snowball in hand, which hit the back of George’s head when he threw it.

“Are you hiding from me?” George’s voice seemed to have dropped several octaves and he sounded rather like Professor Ratigan. “If you’ve broken the second rule--”

“You’re practically a team of people by yourself in this case!” Edward called. “And rules were made to be broken.”

“Rules are _not_ made to be broken,” John hissed. “Nothing is.”

“Animated plates are meant to be broken.”

_“Animated plates?”_

“You know, like in an old cartoon when someone breaks a plate over their head.”

“That doesn’t count. They’re not real.”

“Fascists’ faces.”

“Okay, one thing.”

“Eggs,” George suggested, sitting down beside them. “What?” he asked at their confused looks. “This conversation is worth giving up a snowball fight for. Oh, and bread. Bread is meant to be broken.”

“Bananas,” said Edward. “You have to break the skin.”

John folded his arms. “Any non-food examples?”

“The skulls of dictators,” said George.

“Charles Manson’s teeth.”

“Charles Manson’s nose.”

“Charles Manson’s whole body.”

“We have got to find other shows to watch than _Mindhunter.”_

And thought it was cold and the snow was wet, the conversation continued well into the afternoon, for there were suddenly many things in this world meant to be broken, and once they went off on a strange new tangent, it simply had to be explored fully, with no possibility left out whatsoever. Such was, and would continue to be, their way.


	6. 'Night by the Fire'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four-hundred-and-sixty-nine words of plotless Fitzier fluff. They deserve it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lyrics featured are from Fleetwood Mac's song "Rhiannon", written by Stevie Nicks.

He doesn’t realise that it’s already dark out until a pair of familiar hands slide down his chest and he looks up, catching a glimpse of the window as he does. James is leaning over his shoulder. “Are you done yet?”

“Just about. Is something wrong?”

“No. I just miss you.”

“Miss me? I’ve been here all afternoon, James.”

“And you’ve shut yourself up in the office. Neptune and Fagin miss you too, you know. I’ve had to stop them from scratching the door up four times.” As if he has sensed his mention, Neptune comes bounding into the room and sitting at Francis’s feet, his tail thumping the floor furiously. Francis reaches down to scratch him behind the ears. “See?” James asks. “Look at how happy he is to see you.”

“Are you honestly using Neptune to get me out of here?”

“Yes. And I’ll use Fagin too if I have to. I’m a man of many means, Francis.” James takes Francis’s hands in his own. “You must be going mad reading some of these. What’s the worst of it?”

“You really want to know?” James nods. “Someone wrote about sex in a pond. The detail is excruciating and I hate that I kept laughing at it.”

“Then take your mind off it for a while. I’ve got a fire going.” Francis rubs his eyes. To tell the truth, it is rather cold in the office now that the sun’s gone down, so he might as well warm up for a few minutes. He stands and lets James lead him to the small den, where Fagin sits curled up on the couch. He raises his head for a second, yawns, and rests his head on his paws again, evidently disinterested. Neptune wags his tail happily when James gives him another scratch behind the ears and settles himself in front of the fire, which crackles away merrily.

Francis waits for James to let go of his hand and sit down, but instead he pulls him close, his lips curving into a warm smile that reaches his eyes and makes them shine in the way that always makes Francis smile right back. “Dance with me?” he asks softly; Francis nods and James starts humming an accompaniment as they begin to sway more than properly dance. More often it’s a tune he’s made up in his head, but this one Francis recognises, and his mind fills in a few of the lyrics:  _ She rules her life like a fine skylark/And when the sky is starless--  _ They move around the room behind the couch, half-waltzing, half-swaying, Fagin now watching with such an expression of utter bafflement that when they see it, they both snort with laughter. Francis rests his head against James’s shoulder, holds him closer. The best warmth of all.


	7. 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A party, featuring the immortal music of "Hair", Snake Juice, and many wonderful cats.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The lyrics at the end are from "Sheila Franklin/I Believe in Love", written by Gerome Ragni and James Rado for the musical "Hair."  
> 2\. I can't take credit for Snake Juice; it's from the "Parks and Recreation" episode "The Fight", written by Amy Poehler.  
> 3\. Mary Ann Hartnell was Tom Hartnell's younger sister, baptized on 17 September 1826. Her baptism record (and her siblings') can be found here: https://www.freereg.org.uk/search_queries/5dfefe6633045b04c453e9ab?locale=en.

You knew it was a real party when the first song playing was from  _ Hair.  _ “Aquarius” was probably the least appropriate choice for a party thrown to celebrate the winter solstice, but it was also an undisputed masterpiece, so really, no one should complain. When Graham had suggested that he host this one, as he hadn’t yet and very much wanted to, he was given three rules:  _ one,  _ that Stanley not be invited due to the risk of fire, and  _ two,  _ that he check the expiration dates on everything he planned to serve because the last gathering had resulted in three people coming down with terrible cases of food poisoning. So it was the day, and he was ready. Stanley was not coming (he was visiting his in-laws anyway, Harry had said) and all the food, as far as he could tell, was not to expire for a few months. The cashier had given him the strangest look when he had asked if any of it contained salmonella and shrugged, so there was a chance there, but still. Probably not. Hopefully not.

Someone knocked on the door, and Sheila stopped washing her paw and stood up on the couch to look through the window. When she saw who it was she meowed loudly and began to scratch the glass. Graham put her down on the floor to stop her from damaging it, and the very second he opened the door, a black blur shot across the room. “Satan Lucifer, slow down!” George yelled, but the cat was already investigating under the table. “Sorry. He doesn’t like car rides.” (In addition to this being a winter solstice party, it was also a cat party. Nearly everyone in his group of friends had a cat and Graham thought they should all get to know each other. Silna had promised that Tuunbaq would be on his best behavior.)

“I can tell. And before you ask, John, I checked. You won’t get food poisoning again.”

“You’re sure?” John asked.

“I’m sure.”

“There’s nothing in there that will kill me?”

“Nope.”

“Razor blades?”

“Why would I put razor blades in food?”

“Not you, the manufacturers. Arsenic?”

“No.”

“Rat poison?”

“No.”

“Snake venom?”

“No.”

“Snake Juice?”

“Isn’t that the same thing as snake venom?”

“No, but it’s basically rat poison.”

“It’s not real,” Edward said. John shook his head.

“You don’t know that. Someone could have made it somewhere.”

“And whoever did is probably dead.” Their heads all turned when a yowl came from the dining area. Satan Lucifer had tried to insert himself into a game that Sheila was playing by herself and had gotten swiped at for it. He wasn’t hurt, but even so. That meant war, or it would have if George hadn’t picked him up and taken him away at once.

“What did we say?” he sternly asked the pitifully mewling cat. “No fighting.”

“Who wants Snake Juice?” someone asked brightly from the still-open doorway. Cornelius stood on the threshold, holding not a cat (for he had none) but an enormous bottle. Billy stood next to him, eyeing the bottle suspiciously. “It’s perfectly safe.”

‘“It’s not,” Billy said. “You almost blew up the kitchen making it.”

“Okay, so I started a tiny fire--”

“The entire stove was burning up!”

“You made that on the stove?” Graham asked, peering at the bottle. He couldn’t see what was inside, and he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know.

“Yeah, I had to melt the sugar somehow.”

“What else is in this?”

“Alcohol, sugar, coffee… I don’t know, I just threw in a bunch of stuff. Here.” Cornelius shoved the bottle into Graham’s hands and walked in, Billy following with an apologetic look. Satan Lucifer had reapproached Sheila more carefully and had properly joined her game. Edward stared at the bottle in horror.

“Seriously.  _ Snake Juice?!” _

“Yep.” Graham set down the bottle with the rest of the snacks. “I don’t think anyone should be touching this.”

“All it did in the show was make people drunk,” George said. “Super drunk, sure, but just drunk. No one died from it.” Graham looked him dead in the eye.

“Cornelius made this, and sometimes he looks at me like he’s wondering how my flesh would taste. No one is drinking this. From this moment on, this bottle is decoration.”

Within the next half-hour, more people (and cats) filed in: Harry and Silna with Tuunbaq (whose best behavior turned out to be trying to maul Sheila and almost getting mauled himself; Graham was so proud of her); Thomas, and Tom, who had come with his younger sister Mary Ann, since she was in town and had a cat named Ben. The conversation and music was stimulating and the cats were adorable, but it wasn’t long at all before everyone was circled around the bottle of so-called Snake Juice, fascinated by its contents. (Well, not the cats. The cats were far too interested in how high Tuunbaq could climb up the curtains to care about something as simple as a bottle they couldn’t drink from.)

“Someone should drink it,” George said. “Just a sip, to try.”

“Even a sip might kill you,” Thomas said, shaking his head. Cornelius groaned.

“It’s amazing how much you don’t trust me. I swear, it’s completely fine to drink it.”

“You don’t even know what you put in there except for coffee, sugar, and alcohol,” Graham said. “How do you know you didn’t poison it?”

“I don’t keep poison in my kitchen.”

“Okay, that’s fair. But like I said. This bottle is now decoration, for our own safety, and our cats’ safety.”

“I’ll drink it,” Mary Ann said, grinning. “I just got off school. Grad school,” she clarified. “I’m studying at Durham and I’m of legal drinking age. Now give it. Oh, don’t look like your best friend just got murdered,” she said to Tom, who was gaping at her incredulously. “Mum and Dad didn’t tell you to look after me, did they?”

“Not exactly,” Tom said, the terrified expression not leaving his face. Mary Ann shrugged and opened the bottle. Immediately a strong, sweet, horrible smell wafted upwards towards the ceiling, and everyone wrinkled their noses. Nevertheless, she poured herself a glass and swallowed it. 

“Oh. Oh, that’s… that’s… how much sugar did you put in here?”

“Four cups,” Cornelius said, and Mary Ann grimaced.

“That’ll do it.”

“Screw it.” Cornelius snatched the bottle. “I’ll drink it myself and prove it’s fine.” And he did, straight from the bottle.

The next half-hour found Mary Ann perfectly stable, but Cornelius kept tripping over the cats and walking into walls. “I do this normally,” he shouted. “I’m not used to this many cats. Don’t worry,” but when he started singing along to “White Boys” and replaced most of the lyrics with his own, more explicit ones they knew he was far too drunk. Mary Ann, on the other hand, remained her normal self, which prompted George to try it. Unfortunately, he did not have as high a threshold as she did, and soon joined Cornelius in a half-sung-half-slurred rendition of “Walking in Space” (which was terribly fitting considering the situation). By midnight, Tuunbaq had made it up to the curtain rod and no matter how many times Harry and Silna called him he just  _ wouldn’t  _ leave, and Silna had to stand on a chair to take him down, whereupon he jumped out of her arms and started tussling with Sheila again. Like her namesake, Sheila was a true firecracker, and then Ben joined in, and once Thomas finally managed to pry them apart, a cushion had been shredded and stuffing was strewn everywhere. It was one-thirty in the morning when people started leaving: Edward and John supporting a still-singing George (he was now singing “Let the Sun Shine In” loud enough for half of London to hear, and Satan Lucifer was mewing along just as loudly); Billy with a passed out Cornelius in his arms  _ (how  _ he was able to carry Cornelius when he was thin as a corpse Graham didn’t understand, but then again Cornelius was quite short); Silna and Harry, Tuunbaq hissing from two scratches across his face; Mary Ann, Ben curled around her shoulders and still lucid, insisting to Tom that she was  _ perfectly fine, stop worrying;  _ and Thomas, throwing a thank-you over his shoulder as he went.

Graham surveyed the scene. Sheila was sitting on the couch in the remains of the cushion, proudly tending to her wounds. The bottle of Snake Juice was half-empty, and the food completely untouched. The curtain Tuunbaq had climbed was hanging by a thread. The cast recording had played itself through, and “Aquarius” was back on. Graham hummed along as he poured the bottle out into the sink and watched it to make sure it didn’t curdle the metal. Mary Ann had been weirdly unaffected, but he had decided it was entirely possible that she was a superhuman. 

_ “Sheila Franklin, second semester, NYU, and she’s a protestor,”  _ he sang softly to Sheila as he sat down beside her and she climbed into his lap, purring. Now was this a success or a disaster? The answer, Graham knew, with his group of friends, was both. It was always both.


End file.
